> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://theparnassian.com/en/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Inaccuracies in Boutrois's 1794 engraving of the Bronze Horseman in Chantreau's book
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/na-udivlenie-ne-tochnoe-izobrazhenie-mednogo-vsadnika-na-graviure-filibera-butrua-iz-filosofskogo-politicheskogo-i-literaturnogo-puteshestviia-po-rossii-v-1788-i-1789-godakh-pera-nikola/
- Published: 2026-11-14T16:24:33.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-14T16:40:13.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Art, Books, Observations, Saint Petersburg

The depiction of the Bronze Horseman in the engraving by Philibert Boutrois, from Pierre Nicolas Chantreau's «Philosophical, Political and Literary Journey through Russia in 1788 and 1789» of 1794, is surprisingly inaccurate.

The inscription «Petro Primo / Catharina Secunda», that is, «Catherine the Second to Peter the First», Boutrois reproduces with Roman numerals and the Latin verb posuit, «set up». Peter here is youthful, almost effeminate, in a fur-trimmed cloak and on an ornate saddlecloth, rather than in a plain shirt and cloak and on an animal skin, as in Falconet. The Thunder Stone looks more like a silly, shapeless crag.

Do you know what is going on? Naturally, neither the author of the book, nor still less the draughtsman, nor the engraver had ever been to Russia or seen Peter; they simply compiled the text and the verbal descriptions for the illustrations from the sources available at the time.